ECOLOGY STUDENT-LED DISCUSSION

Chapter ?
FRESHWATER ECOSYSTEMS

Awa, Dia A.
Cadayday, Rhea Cristyl C.
Visto, Pamela I.
FRESHWATER
• Includes water found in lakes, reservoirs, rivers, and
other body of water aside from the sea.
• Salinity is less than 0.5 parts per thousand.
• Has evolved to the rhythms of natural hydrologic
variability ultimately driven by solar energy.

Figure 1. Hydrological cycle. Illustration by Nadav Gazit.

Interaction of five dynamic environmental factors have
been determined to define the bustling nature of
freshwater ecosystems (Baron et.al, 2013). These are:
1. Flow pattern
2. Sediment and organic
matter inputs
3. Temperature and
light characteristics
4. Chemical and nutrient
conditions
5. Plant and animal
assemblage Figure 2.A visionary model of major forces
that affect freshwater ecosystems.
1.Flow pattern. This defines the different rates and pathways
whereby rainfall and snowmelt come in and circulate inside channels
of rivers, wetlands, streams, and connecting ground waters and also
regulates how long the water is contained in these ecosystems.
2. Inputs of sediments and organic matter supply raw materials
which build structures of physical habitat, shelter, substrates,
spawning grounds, and store and supply nutrients which nurture
animals and aquatic plants.
3.Temperature and light characteristics regulate the metabolic
processes, activity levels, and productivity of aquatic organisms.
4.Chemical and nutrient conditions regulate pH, plant and animal
productivity, and water quality.
5.Plant and animal assemblage influences ecosystem process rates
and community structure.
In naturally functioning freshwater ecosystems, these five factors vary all
throughout the year. Species have evolved and these ecosystems have adapted to
get used to these annual cycles.
• Of all the water on Earth, ~3% is considered “fresh water”.
• Of the 3% of global water that is fresh water,
~ 70% is stored as frozen water in the polar ice caps and
glaciers and ~30% is buried underground as groundwater.
• Lakes and rivers take up ~0.3%.
• In total, available freshwater ecosystems cover ~0.8% of the
surface of the Earth.

Figure 2. Global composition of Figure 3. Global availability of fresh water

fresh water
• Freshwater ecosystems are not as large-scale as the sea
but contain multitude of habitats of varying ecological
complexity.
• Also, these support diverse permanent and transitory
organisms,
Table 1. including freshwater
Global freshwater species diversity.species.

(Data for small-bodied organisms e.g. phytoplankton, zooplankton,

amphipods, etc. have not been well described and are not included here.)

• Despite its relatively small portion of the Earth’s surface,

its importance to humans come in various forms.
 Importance of freshwater ecosystems
to humans:
 Vast quantities of water supply for drinking, irrigating
crops, & running industrial processes
 Production of fish & other foods and marketable
goods
 Purification of human & industrial wastes
 Constitute the “bottleneck” in the hydrological cycle
 Flood control
 Transportation
 Recreation
Through several studies that have addressed the
overall condition of freshwater resources, there is an
apprehension that:

-anthropogenic activities are highly altering water

movement through the biosphere;
-there has been an intensive use of water by
humans;
-poor quality water is pervasive; and
-compared with other species, freshwater plant and
animal species are at greater risk of extinction
because of the augmented tampering of humans
Thermal changes in water is slower than in the
atmosphere because of the following thermal
properties:
1. Water is densest at 4˚C. (Prevents the lake from
freezing.)
2. It has a high specific heat.(It takes one calorie per gram of
heat to increase the temperature of 1 gram of water by 1˚C)
3. It has a high latent heat of fusion. (80 calories is needed to
convert 1 gram of ice to water with no change in temperature
and vice versa.)
4. Water has the highest latent heat of evaporation. (597
calories per gram is absorbed during evaporation.)
5. It can dissolve several substances.
6. Water can rapidly conduct heat.
 Freshwater can be divided into three
groups:
1. Lentic water ecosystems
2. Lotic water ecosystems
3. Wetlands
Note: Groundwater is not considered an ecosystem because it only
has minute biological life forms however it is connected to the
three main surface freshwater ecosystems, hence playing a part of
the input and output environment of these three ecosystems.
References:
Hitt, N., Bonneau, L., Jayachandran, K., & Marchetti, M
(2015). Freshwater Ecosystems and Biodiversity. Lessons
in Conservation, 5(5), 5-16. Retrieved
from:https://www.amnh.org/content/download/141379/2285
479/file/Linc5_Freshwater.pdf

Baron, J., Poff, N., Angermeier, P., Dahm, C. et.al.(2003).

Sustaining Healthy Freshwater Ecosystems. Retrieved
from:https://www.esa.org/wp-
content/uploads/2013/03/issue10.pdf